


The Spiders Web

by peculiarmars



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Black Widow backstory, Gen, Origin Story, Red Room (Marvel), SHIELD, Teen Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy, tw:violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-04 12:33:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10991034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peculiarmars/pseuds/peculiarmars
Summary: Despite her records, she knows she has failed before.She knows she has not always aimed well,  not always been quick enough, not always ran fast enough.  She has failed before, but never quite like this.Her past failures consist of bloodied bullet wounds and screaming innocence, not of pretty strangers and dark hotel rooms.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Some notes about this fic:  
> 1)I'm going by parts of the movie canon and part of my own headcanons. In this fic Natasha was born in 1984 and was raised by Red Room. This story is set in 1998/9, so she is 14/15.  
> 2) This is a "nat becomes part of shield" fic. Basically my own personal headcanon for black widow.  
> 3) Although I said above this is based on parts of the films, I'm completely ignoring a lot of what happened in Age of Ultron.  
> 4) Nat did not get pregnant through non-con, though it could be marked as dubious consent as she was underage, but I will explain that in a later chapter.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despite her records, she knows she has failed before. She knows she has not always aimed well, not always been quick enough, not always ran fast enough. 
> 
> She has failed before, but never quite like this. 
> 
> Her past failures consist of bloodied bullet wounds and screaming innocence, not of pretty strangers and dark hotel rooms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) I scrapped my other draft for this bc it had too many plot holes  
> 2) it has the same basic plot  
> 3) who Nat got pregnant with will be explained in a later chapter  
> 4) this will most likely have around three chapters

_Hot breath on her neck, warm hands trailing down her thighs. Her low moans, that and the slapping of skin the only sound in the small hotel room-_

 

Despite her records, she knows she has failed before. She knows she has not always aimed well, not always been quick enough, not always ran fast enough. She has failed before, but never quite like this. Her past failures consist of bloodied bullet wounds and screaming innocence, not of pretty strangers and dark hotel rooms.

 

She knows all the signs. She was taught them when she was ten. She knows for definite that she is carrying a child, and that she is very, very, fucked. She can't tell anyone, the Mistress would kill her for being so foolish. But she can't keep this to herself and she knows it. But she tries.

 

She trains ruthlessly, even more so than before. She suspects that the other girls, particularly Marina Morozov, have their suspicions, but they keep quiet. She finds comfort in their silent solidarity, even as she beats them to the floor, strangling them when she try to kick her off. She may have a secret, but she can not let it control her. She does everything the Mistress asks of her, in the hopes that when she discovers Natalia's secret, she will get rid of it for her, and she can go on being the Widow.

 

Natalia lays awake at night, the hand that isn't chained stroking her stomach, and tries to think of some quiet way to get rid of it. For the next week she looks desperately for a way out, and finds nothing. There is no way out without the Mistress knowing.

 

Unless she just simply vanishes. But that's impossible, isn't it? Mistress controls everything, she see's everything. Natalia would be killed before she could even escape the facility.

 

But she is not just Natalia Romanova. She is Black Widow.

 

And so she disappears.

 

One day she is called Alice, and then another she is called Oksana, and then Elisabeth and then Vera, and then Galina. She switches names so often that she loses track, spits out a name at random when she is asked. She has no money, so steals hair dye and dies her red hair black in a gas station bathroom. She hitches lifts from random men, until she's at the border.

 

She has been pregnant for over a month when she finally leaves Russia. She hides in the back of a delivery van. When the van gets to Kharkov and stops, she walks casually out of the back.

 

She feels eyes on her at every turn, every breath she wonders if it'll be her last. Every time she turns down a darkened alleyway she wonders whether it'll be her last or not.

 

She stays in Ukraine, hiding in empty apartments and cheap hotels, for a month. It only takes a month for someone from Red Room to find her. It's a man, one of the men they were tested against in training, and she recalls that his name may have been Zakhar. Whatever his name was, however, doesn't matter. She kills him; slits his throat and leaves him to bleed out in a dark alleyway.

 

And then she runs again. She runs to Poland. She gets her nose pierced. She starts coating her eyelids in mascara and dark eye shadow, desperate to cover her face. Drops her eyes whenever she spots a camera. She knows it's only a matter of weeks before she starts showing. She knows for certain she's pregnant, as she got a pregnancy test from a girl. The girl's name was Aleksandra, and she was a teenage prostitute. She lived in a homeless shelter and didn't ask much about Natalia. She gave her a fake name, called herself Marina, and Aleksandra didn't ask about her last name. Aleksandra gave her a place to stay, and talked about a plan for the baby, said something about asking for help. Natalia refused.

 

Aleksandra seemed to understand. It was like she knew that something bad had happened to Natalia.

 

And late at night, when Aleksandra wasn't out on street corners, Aleksandra asked where she really came from.

 

"A bad place." Natalia had whispered back. "If anyone from there was to find me, they'd kill me."

 

Aleksandra's body is found a week later, butchered in a warehouse. Three miles away from her usual corner.

 

Natalia runs again.


	2. Chapter 2

_Chestnut eyes, damp hair, the rain pounding the glass, the nip of teeth on her lip,_

 

She goes into Slovakia. She doesn't settle there, she can't. She feels eyes on her back with every step. It's the same feeling she had in Ukriane, except it's multiplied tenfold.

 

She's three months pregnant and starting to show when she first sees him.

 

He's blond, slightly tanned and not much older than her. He's reading a newspaper outside a coffee shop when she first catches sight of him. Her eyes don't linger the first time, they have no need to. Then she see's him again, and again, and again.

 

Biking past her as she crosses the street. Standing in a phone booth as she walks out of an alley. Standing in line behind her at a corner store.

 

She plays his game against him, until they're making subtle eye contact at eachother on the street as they 'coincidently' pass eachother. She doesn't know why she isn't running. She should be. If it were anyone else she would be. But she doesn't, and they play their silent game until she pins him against a wall of an empty street in the middle of the night.

 

"What's your name?" She hisses.

 

"What's yours?" But she's not playing anymore.

 

"You know what it is. It's why you've been following me. But why haven't you _killed me yet?"_ The last part tears out of her throat like a sob and suddenly she's crying. The feeling of constantly being hunted, just waiting for someone to fire a bullet into her head. It's all too _much._

 

She expects the man to kill her in her moment of weakness. Expects him to slit her throat and leave her to bleed out as she cries. _It's what she would've done._

 

Instead the man blinks at her, utterly bewildered, then approaches with his hands up in surrender as you would a wounded animal. Natalia tenses, preparing for pain, but the man only encloses his arms around her. He's hugging her, she realises.

 

After she'd gone back to his flat with him, it doesn't even occur to her that she could've stabbed him in the chest and moved on.

* * *

 

 

The man's name is Clinton Barton. He was sent to kill her.

 

She doesn't bother acting as if this is a shock. She knew people would try to kill after all the bloodshed she'd caused. She just didn't expect someone from another continent to be sent to do the job.

 

He tells her about an organisation called _Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division,_ SHIELD for short. He works as an agent for them. They've known about Red Room vaguely. They know who she is, of course. Or, they know the machine that Red Room created. She finds out she has another nickname, The Soviet Shadow. Clinton hands her a file.

 

There's a grainy photo stuck on it. The photo is clearly of her, before her black hair dye was washed out. It looks like she was still in Russia. There's another photo underneath it and with a jolt she realises that it's outside that same coffee shop where she first saw Clint. She sorts through the smallish pile and finds half a dozen photos, all of her. They're recent. Very recent. Snapped through murky glass inside a phone box, a blurry shot taken whilst riding a bike, a clear photo taken as they passed eachother on the street.

 

"You took pictures of me?" She's suprised at how strong her voice is.

 

Clinton shrugs. "I needed proof that you existed."

 

Natalia runs a finger over her inked face. "Does anyone else know about these?"

 

"No, only me. It was a solo mission."

 

"What do you want from me, Barton?"

 

He shrugs again. "Honestly? I don't know. I'm not going to kill you, I think we're pretty past that now. I could take you to SHIELD. Talk it over with my boss. I don't know if he'd take you, but I doubt he'd turn you out."

 

SHIELD wouldn't turn her out and they both know it. They might decide to charge her for her endless list of crime and sentence her to be locked in a room for the rest of her life, but they wouldn't turn her out. She's too valueable. She has secrets that could topple empires. They wouldn't want someone like her falling into the wrong hands.

 

She ponders on the notion of becoming an agent. She could do that. She'd be good at it. Agents lie and cheat and kill. Black Widow lies and cheats and kills. An easy fix. Red Room to SHIELD. One jailer to another.

 

"Don't tell them I'm here. Don't tell them anything. Tell them you're still tracking me."

 

Clinton frowns, scratching the back of his neck. "Do you not want to involve SHIELD? 'Cause I kind of have to, you know. It's sort of my job."

 

Natalia breathes deeply, suddenly extremely tired of this coversation. "Not yet. Maybe in six or seven months. I just can't right _now."_ Clinton stares stares at her in confusion before an understanding comes over his face.

 

"You're pregnant, aren't you?"

 

Natalia's eyes snap up to meet his. "How do you know?" She leaps out of her chair, stalking towards him menacingly. "How did you figure that out?" She snarls.

 

"Woah, calm down, kid. It was just a rumour, all right?"

 

"Who started it?"

 

"Just some guy. Some anonymous guy tipped off SHIELD. They thought you'd be vulnerable, so sent me to kill you." Clinton explains hurridly. It doesn't sound like a lie. Even with the bead of sweat dripping down his face, she still thinks he's telling the truth.

 

Clinton tells her most of the same thing Aleksandra had; that she should somehow get proper medical care. She tunes out for the most of it, only tuning back in when she realises that he is offering to let her stay with him.

 

"Aren't you afriad that I'll murder you in you're sleep?" She queries.

 

Clinton looked at her in an odd sort of way - as if he had only just remembered that she was a deadly assassin who killed in cold blood and would definity be capable of that - and then shook his head. "Spare bedroom is the first door on the right."

* * *

 

Natalia would describe Clint as strangely likable. He's funny, in a cynical way. Cracks one liners at every opportunity.

 

Natalia mostly sticks to the shadows, avoiding him when she can. She only goes out if Clint makes her. She isn't sure why she's suddenly so apprehensive about leaving the flat. One night she puts it down to the fact that this is the first place she has ever felt safe, and unconsciously believes that if she leaves she'll come back to find it gone. The only place she has ever felt safe is with a man who is supposed to kill her. The irony isn't lost on her.

 

She watches her stomach grow and wonders when her due date would be. It was mid-august when she realised she was pregnant, so guesses that she'll give birth around May.

 

She knows Clint is curious about who's baby she is carrying, but he never asks. She likes that about him, simply knowing what to ask and what to let her say on her own.

 

After a month of living in Clint's flat, she tells him.

 

She tells him about the mission in Florence, Italy. Tells him about a man she killed, and his nephew. She was to get close to him to get to the man. But it went wrong, she tells him. She got too invested, _too_ close. She liked him, liked him a lot. They flirted for weeks whilst she was supposed to be collecting information, and flirting lead to kissing and kissing lead to groping and groping lead to fucking in a cheap hotel room.

 

"His name was Fabio." She whispers when she's finished. She feels an added weight to her shoulder and finds that Clint has his arm around her. She isn't sure why, but it feels nice. She buries her face into his shirt and cries for the next thirty minutes.

 

Clint Barton gave her a chance. She has a chance with him. If she were to join SHIELD, in a way she could 'atone for her sins'. Or something like that.

 

She trusts Clint. Trusts him with her life.

 

He was sent to kill her, but made a different call.

 

So one night in March, when Clint is deeply asleep, she steals some of his safekeeping money and leaves.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment if you're interested in this, I'll try to get the next chapter up in a few days. (if you see any grammar/spelling mistakes please tell me)


End file.
